Unitary representations of oligomorphic groups

Abstract: We obtain a complete classification of the continuous unitary representations of oligomorphic permutation groups (those include the infinite permutation group $S_\infty$, the automorphism group of the countable dense linear order, the homeomorphism group of the Cantor space, etc.). Our main result is that all irreducible representations of such groups are obtained by induction from representations of finite quotients of open subgroups and moreover, every representation is a sum of irreducibles. As an application, we prove that many oligomorphic groups have property (T). We also show that the Gelfand--Raikov theorem holds for topological subgroups of $S_\infty$: for all such groups, continuous irreducible representations separate points in the group.